Monthly Archives: October 2017

By Jess Spear Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the American presidency was without doubt the biggest political movement in the US in the past 30 years. It inspired millions of people to get active and organized to fight for radical change. After nearly a decade since the economic crash of 2007/8, millions of homes lost, lives destroyed, services left underfunded, and ...

By Kevin McLoughlin It’s just two generations ago that people in the Spanish State suffered under the brutal military police dictatorship of Franco. Undoubtedly, the repression imposed in Catalonia brings back memories of that hated time. Discontent grow in the years before Franco’s death in 1975. Fearing revolution from below, the regime was forced to implement some reforms, but in a way ...

By Kevin Henry The current political impasse in the North continues in the wake of two election campaigns which have been described as the “mother of all sectarian headcounts.” Both Sinn Féinand DUP have consolidated their positions as the largest political force in their respective communities. The current stalemate in terms of talks is a reflection of increased sectarian polarisation ...

By Katia Hancke Irish Rail workers are due to go on strike at the end of October. The attempts by sections of the mainstream media to portray this as workers demanding a wage increase that the company simply can’t afford are very disingenuous. In reality, workers in all three sections of what used to be CIE – Dublin Bus, Bus ...

By Diana O’Dwyer A year ago, there was a sudden outbreak of tone policing of the abortion rights movement in the media. In the space of a month, upwards of thirty articles appeared urging women not to be so shrill, to be reasonable, to tone it down for fear for alienating the so-called “middle ground”. This just so happened to ...

Socialist Party member and Solidarity TD Mick Barry visited Catalonia in the days before and after the 1 October referendum as part of team of international observers. In that time he met young people and workers fighting the repression of the Spanish State. I spent six days in Catalonia at the end of September and the beginning of October. I ...

Nationalise Bombardier! A brewing international trade dispute is threatening thousands of jobs in Northern Ireland. One thousand workers at Canadian aerospace company Bombardier’s Belfast plant are engaged in building wings for its new C-series passenger jet. Last year, Bombardier secured a major order for the planes from US airline Delta but that has now been put in jeopardy by a ...

Fifty years after his death, the image of Che Guevara is familiar to most people. A fashion statement for some, for many others it is a political declaration. They identify with the legacy left by Che Guevara as a symbol of struggle, defiance, internationalism and a better, socialist world. As Tony Saunois, secretary of the Committee for a Workers’ International ...

Mick Barry, Solidarity TD and a member of the Socialist Party, gives an eyewitness report on yesterday’s general strike and enormous demonstration in Barcelona against police repression and for the right to self-determination. Mick was as an international observer for the referendum held last Sunday in Catalonia. More than a million people joined a Barcelona general strike demonstration last night, ...